


10 Truths in a World of Lies

by mpatientdreamr



Category: Leverage
Genre: Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpatientdreamr/pseuds/mpatientdreamr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reading people is part of the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 Truths in a World of Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This isn’t, at all, in any sort of chronological order.

10.) Eliot Spencer is _not_ the next Chuck Norris. Eliot Spencer disapproves of mustaches. 

(“Dude, you can _not_ rock the ‘stache,” Hardison cackled.

“Those files are supposed to be _classified_ , Hardison,” Eliot said, like he wasn’t talking to a world class hacker and that was actually supposed to mean something.)

9.) Sophie sometimes has trouble remembering her name. Oh, not the personas she creates for the grift. Those all remain crystal clear. No, it’s her given name she has trouble remembering. That might be because no one else on Earth knows it.

(Hardison studied her for a long while, as though he could see into her soul from thousands of miles away through the pixels on the screen. It’d been a long, trying day for him, that she knew. The first grift was the hardest and he’d had to deal with Russians.

“What name do you want on your real tombstone?” he asked and he must have seen the complete freeze of her mind because he carried on, tone lighter, “’Cause I will totally put Sophia Ford on it, just to see the look on Nate’s face.”

She laughed freely, off the hook.

Only when he rang off did the smile fall away. “Better any name than the real one,” she whispered.)

8.) Nate will never have sex with Parker or Hardison. (To be fair, he won’t have sex with Eliot, either.) Not because he thinks they’re unattractive, though. They’re very attractive. It’s because they’re _Parker_ and _Hardison_.

(“Do you like sex?” Parker asked, a confused, almost distasteful look on her face.

Hardison almost choked on his orange soda.

He did choke when Nate said idly, “Yes,” never once looking away from his crossword puzzle.

“Jesus,” Eliot muttered, getting up and stomping towards the kitchen. “I need booze for this.”

“There isn’t any,” Nate called pleasantly.

Eliot changed directions smoothly, yelling, “I’m goin’ to the bar!”

“Bring me a beer!” Hardison yelped. 

Eliot rolled his eyes over his shoulder. “Not in the recovering alcoholic’s home, Hardison.”

Then he slammed the door behind him and Hardison was very, very alone with Parker and Nate. He was suitably terrified.

“Would you have sex with Eliot?” Parker asked and Hardison was very glad Eliot had left because he would miss Parker if Eliot killed her.

“If I liked men, Eliot would probably be on the list,” Nate said, filling in ‘indomitable’ for 18 Down. “Sadly, I don’t want to have sex with men.”

“And, well, Sophie,” Parker said with a shrug and Hardison was so proud of her for picking up on all the UST going on there.

“Mmm,” Nate said and that was a little disturbing.

“And Hardison’s a man,” Parker continued and maybe Hardison wouldn’t miss her so much when Eliot killed her. Because he was so telling him now.

“That he is,” Nate said as though he couldn’t tell where this was going.

“But I’m a woman,” Parker said, voice flat and face blank.

“Yes you are,” Nate said seriously, looking at her for the first time. “Unfortunately, you look a lot like Maggie, like any daughter we might have had might have looked, so that would be strange.”

Parker perked up. “I like Maggie.”

Then _she_ was gone, probably off to con Eliot into buying her a drink so she didn’t have to spend her own money, and he was very alone with just Nate.

“Sex,” he managed.

“Hmm,” Nate said, smirking. “There’s a reason I didn’t become a priest.”)

7.) Hardison, in fact, is not a virgin. He’s probably had a more varied sex life than even Eliot.

(“You can’t go in there,” Hardison said after one glance at the club’s exterior.

“Why not?” Eliot demanded, extra belligerent.

“You have Lady Hair and that’s a gay bar,” Hardison announced wisely, eyebrows raised.

“How do you know it’s a gay bar?” Eliot asked, suspicious.

“Because I’ve been here. If you’d have told me where we were going, I’d have saved us some time,” Hardison said, unashamed and honestly amused at Eliot’s confused face.

“I thought- You and Parker,” Eliot said, for once unsure of his footing.

“What? A black man with cybernetics in his genetic code can’t swing both ways?” Hardison asked, deflecting away from Parker. They were something, he just wasn’t sure either of them had come up with what, exactly, yet.

Eliot glanced at him and said, “Huh,” and that was not the glance of a wholly straight man. Huh, indeed.)

Alright, so he’s at least _definitely_ had a more varied sex life than Nate.

6.) Parker orbits Eliot when her emotions are up in the air. Emotions are hard for her and Eliot is pretty constant in his surliness and slight protectiveness.

(“Where’s Eliot?” Parker demanded, that wounded look that she sometimes got in her eye. “This is where we’re supposed to meet. He should be here by now.”

Never let it be said that thieves didn’t learn from their mistakes. After what happened to the L.A. offices, they’d all drifted away from one another and it’d been hard to find a reason to come back together.

This time, because there was always gonna be a next time, they’d set up a safe house and agreed on a day and time to meet there. Nate and Sophie were already arguing about something in the corner of the room but Eliot was late.

“He’ll be here,” Hardison said, trying to be reassuring.

Parker, of course, didn’t take the comfort. “Maybe he won’t. Maybe he’s tired of us. Maybe he bought a farm and some horses and he’s never coming back.”

Thankfully, the elevator dinged before Hardison had to try to unravel her logic.

Eliot walked in moving kind of stiff and his face was a darkened rainbow of bruises.

Parker edged closer and blurted, “You’re late.”

“Yeah, can you believe airport security didn’t just let me slide right through?” Eliot said sarcastically, easing down onto the couch. “Apparently, massive bruising is cause for a cavity search.”

Hardison sighed and started to hack airport security because he knew, just _knew_ , that Eliot didn’t let anybody stick anything in his business without his permission. It was going to take him _days_ to erase the trail from this little fiasco.

In the reflective surface, he saw Parker sit next to Eliot, edging slowly closer. “I thought you didn’t hit cops.”

When her finger shot out to poke a bruise, Eliot caught it, quick as anything, and brought it down to his jean-covered thigh as his head fell back against the back of the couch. “I don’t hit _real_ cops.”

Parker didn’t pull away or fight. Honestly, all she did was stare at their hands, then turn her hand over so palm pressed against palm.

She looked at Hardison and that wounded look was gone.)

5.) Sophie does not believe in love at first sight. She might, however, believe in love at first shot. Because seeing is believing for most people, but in their business, they know it’s all one big illusion. Not that Hardison can judge. He’s in like with a woman that hoards money like a dragon and in lust with a guy that knows how to kill a man with an appetizer.

(“So, wait,” Hardison said, bouncing a little in his seat. “You two _shot_ each other?”

Sophie had a fond, remembering look on her face but it was Nate that said, eyebrow raised, “The first time you met Parker, she jumped off a 22 story building and the first time you met Eliot, he beat up four armed security guards.”

Hardison’s jaw snapped shut because it was the first time Sophie or Nate had acknowledged that there might be something going on between their other three teammates. Plus, Nana always said throwing stones in glass houses only brought the roof down on your head.)

4.) Hardison knows he was lucky with the homes he was put into but he still wishes life had been easier. It’s hard for him to feel like he belongs when he knows from personal experience that it just takes a phone call to send somebody away.

(“You know we miss you, right?” he asked, standing in front of the screens. This whole psychic job had been hard for all of them, especially when the mark had yanked Parker’s chain.

“Hardison…,” Sophie said and her voice sounded so sincere it took him a second to decide that it was real, to hear that tinge of happiness underneath.

“Tara’s a cool cat and great at the grift,” he said, shrugging. “But she’s not you.”

He closed the computer when they’d just been staring at one another for awhile.)

He’s learning, though, that when a person belongs with somebody, or a group of somebodies, it can just take a phone call to bring them home again.

3.) Eliot learned to cook before he learned to fight. His Mama taught him to be wholly self-reliant. He even knows how to sew buttons back onto shirts.

(Hardison fingered the edges of the shirt that a guard had torn and said mournfully, “This is sad. This was my favorite shirt.” He shook the offending garment at Nate. “Your con cost me my favorite shirt. First our beloved offices, now the shirt off my back, Nate.”

“Oh, for the love of-,” Eliot muttered, snatching the shirt out of Hardison’s hand, stomping over to his pack in the corner and pulling out a small kit.

“Oh. My. God,” Hardison said as his _entire_ world tipped over on its side when Eliot sat and threaded a needle and began effortlessly whip-stitching the three inch tear closed.

“My Mama,” Eliot said, shaking his hair out of his face, “didn’t think you were a man until you knew how to do three things: sew the buttons back onto your own damn shirt, shoot your dinner, and then make your own damn stew. I got my first cooking and killing lessons from my Mama. And, yeah, I can sew buttons.” Hardison’s shirt hit him in the face as Eliot said gruffly, “Now put your damned shirt on.”

Hardison swallowed at the look in his eye and put his damn shirt back on. His _favorite_ shirt.)

2.) Parker is, in fact, _not_ fearless. She fears the past just fine, thank you.

(She was pale and twitchy and maybe looked a little more insane than normal. She was _also_ perched as close to Eliot as she could get without actually being in his lap.

“I don’t want to do this job,” she announced, like they all couldn’t tell that from how she was acting.

“Parker…,” Nate said, slow and careful.

“Sophie got months off. I want one job off,” Parker announced, stood, and left, one last fearful glance at the screen.

“Hardison, dig into Mrs. Smith some more, please,” Nate said after a minute, looking not at their mark but their client.

“She passed the initial dig,” Hardison warned, because they always did a check nowadays.

“Dig deeper,” Nate said, fingers tapping.

So Hardison dug. And what he found wouldn’t make anybody happy.

He clicked the remote as he said, “Annie Smith was a social worker with a long record of negligence. Our mark, Randall Simms, was one of the kids she left in a bad situation. She received a reprimand that was buried and he was moved into a boy’s home. When he grew up, he got rich and conned her out of her house.” He clicked the remote and the blank face of a pretty little blonde girl clutching a bunny popped up. “He wasn’t the only one she left in less than ideal homes.”

Nate nodded, lips pursed. There were wheels turning in his head but he said, “So we let Simms have his revenge. Seems fair, right?”

They picked up their offices and moved from Seattle to D.C. a few weeks later. Parker started breathing easier.)

1.)Nate doesn’t think he’s better than anybody (well, maybe Sterling). He was washed in the blood of his father’s sins and that’s a taint he’ll never be free of. Hardison’s never asked about his old man because the answers are there every time somebody learns his last name and in the way he ducks his head when he’s in McCrary’s. It’s in the way he swears he’s not a thief and yet he’s one of the best Hardison’s ever seen. 

Hardison’s pretty sure that like always recognizes like. Cons can almost always recognize another con. And broken people can almost always recognize other broken people.  
 


End file.
